Apocalypse: I'm Bound to a Mobile Lottery Shop

Chapter 183: Chapter 183: The Blind Box Fruit Tree Appears Again

Lily Hart ignored all the messages. She tossed and turned for a moment before rolling out of bed. A splash of cold water to her face woke her up quite a bit.

She changed her clothes and tied her hair into a ponytail as she headed downstairs. It was a more practical style for work. In her heart, though, she really wanted to take the day off.

Even as she was thinking this, she acted on autopilot. She opened the RV’s service windows and, without a second thought, pressed a button. The sign hanging on the front of the RV, facing the base, lit up.

Multicolored lights crisscrossed over the words, shimmering faintly under the rising sun. It looked very sophisticated.

Lily Hart smacked her forehead in annoyance. ’Force of habit.’ ’Well, since I’ve already opened up, I might as well stay open for the day...’ She sat on a high stool, propping her chin on her hand as she ate fried dumplings.

Chive-flavored. She was pretty sure she was the only one who liked them.

She leisurely finished her meal, washed it down with a glass of soy milk, and stretched contentedly.

A moment later, she saw the main gate of Auspice Base slowly swing open, and residents began to trickle out in twos and threes.

They were quite a distance away, but Lily Hart had good eyesight and could vaguely make out that their clothes were still relatively clean and intact.

’They must be the ones with a little something saved up,’ she figured.

She watched in anticipation, and the residents didn’t disappoint, heading straight for her RV.

"Are you Boss Hart, the one who sells lottery tickets?"

"I am," Lily Hart replied openly.

The group’s eyes immediately lit up. "We saw the post last night and could hardly believe it."

"Yeah, and we didn’t expect to see Boss Hart as soon as we left the base!"

"Boss Hart, can you really win a fruit tree from these? A tree that’s instantly covered in fruit? And different fruit every day?"

"And can you really win a Protective Shield? Does it block all attacks? With no usage limits?"

"Is there really a doll that turns into a rabbit? And it attacks people? And eats them? How crazy is that?"

Their questions came one after another, most of them ridiculously exaggerated, based entirely on their own imaginations.

Back at Spring-Watch Base, Lily Hart had created something like a prize list in her lottery shop’s software.

Currently, the prizes were divided into seven tiers: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue, and Violet.

Red-tier prizes were the best, but so far only three had appeared: a hotel, a convenience store, and a bathhouse.

Orange-tier prizes included soil-improving plants, the mystery box fruit tree, the rabbit doll, various fragments, and so on...

Yellow-tier included the Protective Shield, a thermos, etc... All prizes at the Yellow-tier and above could only be won from the most expensive scratch-off tickets.

She listed all prizes the system designated as Yellow-tier or higher on the public list, but it only showed the prize name, not the winner.

This list was later circulated online, and people let their imaginations run wild, coming up with all sorts of stories.

Lily Hart maintained a faint smile. As they say, when faced with a question you don’t want to answer, just smile.

The group took this as confirmation that their wild guesses were correct and started clamoring for scratch-off tickets.

Lily Hart naturally put the scratch-off tickets on display, continuing to smile as she looked at them encouragingly.

Their confidence soared. One person with a clear goal declared, "I’m going to win a fruit tree!"

Lily Hart scoffed inwardly but kept the smile on her face. ’If you could win just by shouting for it, then—’

"Boss! Does this mean I won something?!" the man exclaimed, his eyes shining with excitement.

Lily Hart retracted her previous thought. She took the ticket, and her brow furrowed. He had actually won something.

"Want to redeem your prize?" Lily Hart asked as usual, though her hand was already moving toward the Lucky Cat out of habit.

The man nodded frantically, completely guileless. "Yes, yes, redeem it!"

Lily Hart glanced at the man’s companions, who were loosely surrounding him, and saw the same eager excitement in their eyes.

A thought flashed through her mind as she reached out and stuffed the scratch-off ticket into the machine.

Soon, the Lucky Cat spat out a sapling the length of an arm. It was extremely withered and looked half-dead.

They stared in shock. ’Is the Lucky Cat’s stomach a bottomless pit? It just spat it out?’

The customer who won the prize took the sapling with shining eyes. "Th-th-this is the sapling that grows fruit?"

Lily Hart glanced at the description card. It was exactly the same as the one from a few days ago; the layout and text were nearly identical.

She gave a firm nod. "Correct."

Since the boss herself had confirmed it, everyone naturally acted like they believed her, whether their faith was genuine or just for show.

They all chimed in with congratulations. "You lucky dog! You hit the jackpot on your first try!"

"Yeah! And I’m calling it now, I get to eat one of the fruits!"

"Me too, me too! Everyone who saw it gets a share!"

They all chattered at once, staking their claims on the future fruit. They did, however, have the sense not to try and claim the tree itself.

Or if they did, they kept the thought to themselves. On the surface, everyone was all smiles.

Lily Hart found it a novel sight. ’After a few days at Spring-Watch Base, I’m not even used to such a harmonious atmosphere anymore~’

She had never seen a mystery box fruit tree bear fruit either, so she egged them on. "Why not try growing it with water right here?"

The customer nodded frantically again. "Yeah, yeah, okay!" ’He’s certainly an agreeable fellow,’ Lily thought.

So, Lily Hart turned and went into the kitchen, grabbed a bucket, filled it two-thirds of the way with water, and carried it out.

She plonked it right on the table with a THUD, sloshing a little water out. The group of people watched, pained by the sight.

The group of seven or eight people all gathered around to look, their faces a mixture of conflict and hesitation.

"Boss Hart, this water is too clean! We can’t bear to use it..."

"Yeah, you could drink this straight! It’s even clearer than the water the base rations out."

"Exactly! Boss Hart, you can’t be so wasteful. We can just dig a hole and plant it right here."

Boss Hart put her hands on her hips and offered a weak defense. "It’s tap water. You can’t drink it."

But in the next second, she saw several people swallow hard. At a time like this, who cared if it was tap water or mineral water? As long as it could quench your thirst, it was good enough.

She didn’t want to dwell on the minor issue, though. ’But isn’t the soil contaminated?’ she wondered.

’Can the fruit tree even survive if they plant it in the ground?’

Before she could think it through, the group sprang into action with surprising efficiency, already using daggers and other tools to dig a hole.

They didn’t seem to care if their daggers were getting nicked; they just went at it. ’Being so reckless really does speed things up, huh,’ she thought.

In less than two minutes, a pit dozens of centimeters deep was dug. They carefully placed the sapling’s roots inside.

Then they buried it, packing the soil in fairly tightly, leaving the trunk and leaves sticking stiffly out of the ground.

It looked a little dopey. The group surrounded the sapling, staring at it with unblinking eyes.

There were no other customers at the moment, so Lily Hart stared right along with them, watching it for a good few minutes.

After it had presumably absorbed enough nutrients from the soil, its leaves began to turn a vibrant green and perk up.

It started to grow rapidly, stopping only when it was eye-level with the squatting group.

A small fruit slowly formed at its top, then grew at an astonishing speed before falling off.

One of them, quick-handed and sharp-eyed, caught it before it hit the ground. But before he could get a good look, it was snatched away.

"Hey! What are you grabbing it for!" His words were, of course, drowned out.